Cold Void
by piratesmiley
Summary: P/O future fic. Olivia has difficulty coping once the war is over.


A/N: My inspiration for this story is posted on my profile, if you're interested.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fringe.

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They are the remnants of a cobweb. Most ties severed, their fragile little connections to each other and the outside world are blowing violently in the wind. They hide in the corners, tucked away from the great bright room. They witness things that no one spares a glance to. If anyone has the right to fear this storm, it's them.

But they persist. As the seasons change unfailingly, they too adapt. They harden into little automatons, decked out in chrome and the hidden weight of the world. Consciousness ebbs and flows innocuous little numbers through their minds while their bodies tumble and shred. They leak emotion like an old car leaks fuel, until soon they are hollowed out into perfect, empty defenses.

When the dust settles, the realizations follow suit. The lives they had built around this war are now essentially over. The fighting has stopped, but they don't have anything left to enjoy, no likes, dislikes, preferences, sentimentalities, emotions. Disturbingly, even poor, crazy Walter and baby sunshine Ella are less inclined to smile, or to be picky. Consciousness devoid of passing fancies, breaths of fresh air, love, hope.

Though they seem whole and intact – those who are left, anyway – none of them are happy. And somehow Olivia, cold from the start, is the first one for which the pressure is too much to bear.

It's a night just like any other. The alarms go off to warn kids of curfew, the stench of pollution and trash is pungent, the people tersely and silently go home from work. Olivia goes over to Peter and Walter's house, to keep up a pretense that they are still friends that enjoy each other. That they are still capable of that much. They down their libations as Walter putters around the house.

Peeking through the curtain, the world outside is gray and quiet. The roof above Olivia's head starts to leak from rain she hadn't noticed before. The Observers swarm the streets in their black suits and black hats and black umbrellas. The gloomy sky still bears the rift, like a badly-sewn scar, of the two worlds' minor collision.

Near-death experiences are nice and all, but the constant reminder of her fragile mortality is a little alarming, and in this instant it makes Olivia sick.

In the end, it only takes a little thing to send her over the edge. It is with a raindrop hitting her head, dispersing through her hair, chilling her, and that image of false completion in the sky that Olivia falls to pieces. Shrapnel and tears shatter the trio's armor; the old man and the star-crossed something-or-others cease to keep it together anymore.

As arms wrap around her, Olivia wonders what, between that beginning and this end, she should have done to change the outcome. _I don't understand. We won. Why do I wish we hadn't?_

_What did I do wrong?_

Images and words and people flicker through her head and out again as nonviable solutions to what she believes is her problem. If she can pin down the precise moment in which she should have reacted differently, then she can find some sort of peace in the knowledge. And if there is anything she can use after a lifetime of preparing for war, it's peace.

But just how far back does her ignorance go? Does it extend to the moment she chose to let Newton get away, when she chose to save Walter? Was it the moment she had to kill Charlie? The moment she went into the other - now deceased - universe? When she met William Bell? Or was it farther back? What if not involving Peter would've made things easier? Or if she'd never gone to Germany to meet with Jones? What if she had never fallen in love with her partner? Would that have changed the hell she lives in now? Or is it something seemingly small, something imperceptible to fading memory?

"Stop thinking," Peter begs. She lifts her cheek from his shoulder, not understanding. "I can see the wheels turning in your head. You can't think about it, Liv. It's over now; there's nothing you can do. You just have to let it go."

"I don't think I can do that." Through piercing doubt blooms an unspoken plea. _Help me. Tell me what to do._

"_I_ think you can. I think you can do anything you want."

Faith.

If freedom is the sweetest thing imaginable, then Peter is pure sugar, enacting her exodus and screwing with her appetite. She wonders for a minute if she should take him as her way out of misery; how ethical could that be? But it's an offer she can't refuse. She smiles genuinely, and the muscles it takes to do so are surprised at the abrupt synchronized movement after such an extended hibernation. "Thank you." She puts her head back down on his chest and wraps her arms tighter around his middle.

"Son? _Oh._"

Olivia thinks Walter Bishop is the best at interrupting. Really, nothing, nobody could ever top him. They pulled apart, so Walter would continue. "I made muffins." Specifically to Olivia: "They're your favorite."

"Thank you, Walter." And she smiles another genuine smile. "That's really sweet of you."

"Oh, it was no trouble at all!" The host in Walter comes alive, to Olivia's amusement and Peter's chagrin. "Come along," he orders, and strides back into the kitchen.

"Come along," Olivia repeats to Peter teasingly, taking him by the hand and pulling him into the kitchen. His rolling eyes and sharp tongue and warm hands and expansive mind serve as relief and comfort, always at her back.

So maybe life isn't that bad, after all.


End file.
